auto T.O. w/kalk

[cap11885]

im about to set up my auto topoff system and i hear of ppl toping off with Kalkwasser. what would the pros and cons of that set up. would a standard auto topoff with an aqualifter handle that. wouldnt it run the risk of over dosing?

[Playa-1]

It's definitely something to consider and you may want to have safeguards in place to prevent that from happening. Mine is set up with a controller and a dosing pump. The controller monitors the pH and will turn the pump off if the pH gets out of line. I have it set up to make small doses throughout the night to equal my avg daily evaporation.
With this setup I mix kalk about once per month and I do have to manually tweak the water levels from time to time.

[cap11885]

is it worth even doing it then

[Sk8r]

Kalk is not that hard.

Kalk: how to: why to: how much to
Posted 03/13/2011 at 10:39 AM by Sk8r
Updated 03/13/2011 at 10:53 AM by Sk8r
Why put lime in your ATO?
It's called 'dripping kalk', from the German word for lime. It's appropriate for anyone with clams or stony coral, ie, a tank that sucks up calcium faster than weekly water changes can supply it.

This is why stony coral keeping is a lot easier than people think it is---easy, as in, "very little work"...as in, "actually far less work than keeping a FOWLR."

First you need an ATO [automatic topoff]. Everyone does who doesn't plan to spend life tied to a tank putting teaspoons of water in. And if you want to keep stony coral or clams and run this kind of topoff, a high evaporation rate is a real asset.

Dripping kalk can completely satisfy a coral-packed tank of 50 gallons, no problem. It probably can do the same for a 75. When you get above 100, it's a question related to how packed you are.

But here's how. You have an ATO bucket. Arrange for one with a lid. I used to use a 7-gallon Oceanic salt bucket [free]; I now use a 32 gallon Rubbermaid Brute trashcan, with rolled-up paper towel for a gasket to make the lid fit snugly. You also need to set your ATO pump a bit off the bottom: set it on a rock, eg, to keep it from sucking up any residue. I use a Maxijet 1200, and since the kalk-drip goes into the fuge area of my sump, I used reducing connectors to reduce the hose size from 1/2 inch to airline diameter: a locline connector hoseclamped inside the end of the 1/2" hose does the job. A metal hose clamp is ok inside the ro/di container, because fresh water doesn't care.

Now the nitty-gritty of how to run it. Understand two things. 1. kalk can only MAINTAIN the level of calcium you set. It cannot raise it. 2. it's pretty safe---if you have a topoff accident with it, your tank might turn white with kalk, and it will spike your ph a bit, but the real danger will remain the amount of freshwater you shot in via topoff. You can use a teaspoon or two of Schweppe's Bar Soda to lower the ph a tad, BUT since in such an incident the ph is going to fall back to safe level on its own PDQ, you risk overdoing it.

So: to set up: dose your tank the regular way, by hand, to the following readings: magnesium 1300; alk 8.3-9.3; calcium 420 or a little higher---in that order. Remember you can't add alk and calcium with 8 hours of each other.

Now: for a light coral load, you can try adding 1 tsp of kalk per gallon of reservoir water to your ATO reservoir, and lid it. Test your levels weekly. If they stay up, that's all you need. If the levels go down, correct your tank levels by hand dosing, and increase the kalk dose in the bucket to 2 teaspoons per gallon of ATO water, lid, and continue dosing.

2 teaspoons per gallon is the max you can do. Any additional will sink out of solution and lie on the bottom until you add more fresh water: this is why your pump is sitting on a rock. It doesn't go bad: in my 32, I dump in 2 pounds of kalk once every few months, and add ro/di as needed.

[If you are a 100 gallon borderline for being able to use kalk instead of going over to a calcium reactor, there is a way to hype this dose a tad by using white vinegar, but go to the chemistry forum to ask that one: I don't want a flock of word-of-mouth new users pouring white vinegar into their nano reefs!]

This system, with adequate light and a not so great skimmer, lets you raise really happy clams and large polyp stony coral with, as aforesaid, far less work than you think: no filters---these systems with megalots of lps coral don't like filters. Just live rock and sand, not even a filter sock. A fuge can help; but at 5.00 for 2 pounds of Mrs. Wages' Pickling Lime, this is also one of the most economical systems you can run. If you don't ever let the mg drop, you can run this for months without having to re-set the levels, only adding more ro/di as needed. So just test the mg now and again and you're golden.

[cap11885]

my thought now is. so lets say i set it up with a controller and the ph is off so it stops toping off. having never done it i wonder. anyone wana idiot proof the whole concept for me

[Sk8r]

It's pretty idiot-proof. I don't use a controller so I can't tell you how to set that up. I just use a maxijet 1200 in a lidded garbage can connected to a salt-water-proof and snail-proof float-switch in the sump, sort of a miniature thing like that float in a toilet tank, just that its drop operates an electrical switch, not a water valve. As my water evaporates, it cuts on the pump, adds a few tablespoons and then stops. Stopping is real important.

[cap11885]

well i have a 125g. i have a few softys and polyps and a clam. i plan to add another clam and some hards. would you recommend a calcium reactor or just monitoring the calcium levels. i also dont do anything with mag or any trace elements. i assume that water changes would take care of it along with iodine. am i right in this?

[tkeracer619]

I would go with kalk. You can get it cheap at the grocery store as "Mrs Wages Pickling Lime".

Your system seems like it would do just fine with Kalk and monitor your levels weekly.

[Playa-1]

I think it's worth doing but it's not something that you want to do recklessly.

[brob22]

cheapest way of doing it is:

auto top off hooked up to a timer that is set to turn on fore a minute every hour. hooked up to the timer would be a small 20 ish dollar pump. not a powerhead though cuz the kalk will break the impeeler over time. attach a tube with a T and a gatevalve so u can drip the kalk in one minute incraments every hour and when the water level is below your top off.

costs about 70 dollars and is completely safe. all u have to do is check ur sumps water level ever so offten to make sure its consistent.

[Playa-1]

I think the cheapest way is to put it in a 5 gallon container and use a slow feed gravity drip to replace evaporation. It's probably one of the safer ways too ;)

[radicaltimes]

In my oppion the best way is get a Auto top off kit from Bulk Reef Supply. It has two floats . One to turn on and off you ATO pump and then a secondary one in case the first switch fails on. I use a Tom's aqualifter . With the ATO it will kick on and only put in about a couple teaspoons of Kalk. I used a Maxijet before but it will dump in a lot before the float will shut it off. I use aound 13 gallons a week in my 120 reef of Kalk

[Playa-1]

A word of caution on ATO systems. They are not all suited for Kalk delivery. Some will top off much quicker then you would want for kalk delivery. Then others may be perfectly suited for it like the one just mentioned. Also take into consideration a quick delivery method such as the wrong ATO and something like A skimmer going nuts, and you could easliy have a kalk overdose. That's just something to be aware of that some people tend to overlook. I'm not all that familiar with the different ATO systems available, so I can't speak for which ones are acceptable and which ones are not.

[jcw]

I dosed kalk through an ATO.

Then hand dosed four times a day.

Now i use a brs top off dosing pump and timer. It is set to run for 1 minute, 7 times a day. About 280cc for a 125g DT. I don't evaporate much.


The least reliable had been the first. The safest was the second. The easiest is the third (thus far for me).

[Sk8r]

Just for the record, I use a dual (up-down) float switch from autotopoff.com.

A kalk overdose is relatively benign unless you have unsually fussy specimens. And that only happens if you pump kalk slurry into the tank OR have a topoff accident. Ordinarily you keep your pump out of that stuff with a propping block. ANd guard against topoff accidents. My topoff only delivers it by the tablespoonful, as a rule. Rarely more than a quarter cup.

There are 2 things to remember. A) DOn"T stir it up. Period. Water addition is kickup enough. Let it settle 8 hours before cutting your ATO back on.
B) You CANNOT overload your water. Water will only dissolve 2 teaspoons full per gallon. THe rest falls to the bottom of the reservoir as slurry, to dissolve ONLY when you put more water in.
C) if you have a topoff accident your probl.em is more fresh water than it is kalk. But if you have a ph spike because of it---just add 1 tsp Schweppes Bar Soda per gallon and re-test after 20 mintes.

HOnestly, I've seen 4-5 kalk overdoses, 2 or 3 of them mine, and nobody lost a specimen. A lot of milk white water and dust all over, but no real problem.